Covert Assignment is a New Adult, Coming of Age Novel with a strong romantic element. Elle is ready for graduation and full-fledged adulthood: no more living like the leftover of her parent’s divorce. She’s about to graduate with her degree in Information Science (the 21st century term for Library Science) and has a ten-year plan as well-designed as any model for analyzing metadata: earn her JD/MBA, enjoy a couple of years as a single professional, then marry her college sweetheart, Adam, and start her own family.

Yet Elle feels like she returned to an alternate universe her final semester. There are pictures of Adam with a classmate who must be surgically enhanced, but he insists he wants Elle. CIA recruiters show up on campus, and they aren’t just interested in recruiting Elle for future employment: turns out she’s already working for them since they’re funding her thesis. Hot operative Preston Raddick is tasked to work with her. Preston isn’t just hot: he’s hot for Elle, but is he offering happy ever after or happy for right now? A fling with Preston could be the beginning of a new life plan, which is exciting and scary, especially with espionage thrown in. Elle needs a predictive model to tell her which decisions have the greater likelihood for happiness…

Covert Assignment is about the unexpected turns life can take when making “adult” decisions.

I really enjoyed Cover Assignment. While I felt like there were a few holes at parts that were unrealistic, I really like the ideas within the book and the overall message.

I loved the concept of the book. I thought that the whole CIA thing was an interesting concept. I always loved the spy concept and I liked that this focused on the internal computer stuff. Other books have done this but you can really feel Elle’s passion when she’s doing the work. She really lets you into her psyche and I feel like her excitement for her work spread over to me whenever she really got into the tech stuff. On the other hand, I felt like there were a few holes here and there. I don’t know how the whole CIA thing works in America, but I feel like the largest secret agency would be a little more secretive about their headquarters and what they do in the company. I don’t know maybe it’s just me, but it can’t be that easy, just saying.

Relationship wise, I loved her friends. They were really supportive and took everything in stride when it came to Elle. I liked that when things didn’t go their way they didn’t go crazy and they definitely didn’t drop her off the cliff of friendship. On the other hand, I found one part to be a little hypocritical on Elle’s part and that annoyed me. However, I get why she did it the way she did it. However, I am often displeased when it comes to hypocrisy and it always bothers me when characters, especially the main ones do something like that.

I also wish that we got to see a little more about the characters and their background. As you’ve all probably noticed, I’m a stickler when it comes to character development, and while I got to see Elle change throughout the book, I wish there was more about her family issues, especially since it was hinted at. One line that especially loved though, was:

Same bullshit, different day.

Throughout the book, we get to see her grow out of that mindset a little, and I thought that was pretty cool.

Overall, though, this book was a really easy read, despite the fact that there was some computer jargon. I understood everything that was going on at all times and I liked that I really got to walk through Elle’s world and get into her tech head without getting lost. Definitely an interesting read and I really enjoyed it.

Missy Marciassa loved getting lost in novels from the time she could read, so it’s no surprise she wanted to write. Her very first “novels” were re-writing the books she read to get the endings she wanted in second grade. Missy continued to read and write through grade school and high school.

After becoming rather disillusioned with fiction after writing literary criticism as an English major in college, however, Missy focused on her enjoyment of learning about people and studied psychology. Reading fiction fell to the wayside with all the reading and writing required for college and graduate school, but once Missy became a doctoral candidate, she rediscovered her love of fiction. Then she started getting the urge to write, an urge that wouldn’t go away (she refuses to diagnose it as a compulsion). Covert Assignment is the end result of that urge.